Divine By Choice (Partholon #2) By: P.C. Cast (Book Review)

(((This review will contain spoilers)))

Summary: 

Shannon Parker has finally come to terms with life in the mythical world of Partholon. She loves her centaur husband, her connection to the goddess Epona and the pampering that comes with both! She's almost forgotten her old life on Earth, especially, when she discovers she's pregnant...Then a sudden burst of power sends her back to Oklahoma. Without magic, Shannon can't return to Partholon and so she needs to find help. Trouble is, it might take the form of a man as tempting as her husband. And along the way she'll discover that being divine by mistake is a lot easier than being divine by choice. 

The first book was a great joy for me to read and as for the sequel well let's just say that it was a little bit predictable. Shannon being pregnant came to no surprise to me because in most stories once the main evil is vanquished and the heroine finds her true love next comes a pregnancy. Of course, once Shannon is settled and finally accustomed to Partholon she would be forcibly sucked back into her old world. I don't understand how Shannon could have forgotten that Rhiannon tried to switch places yet again but then simply forgot about it and didn't try to learn more about the mystic arts of Epona. 

Evidently, Rhiannon along with being raised as a spoiled brat was also into worshiping the evil god Pryderi, the triple face of darkness. With worshiping him came perverted painful sexual acts, blood sacrifices and allowing his dark influence into your life. Shannon being transported back to her world finally comes face to face with Rhiannon and understands how and why she became this selfish, evil creature. Rhiannon knew from a young age that she was a goddess incarnate and everyone around her spoiled her and never once said 'no' to her. Rhiannon felt with the goddess Epona whispering in her ear and mind that she was trying to control her. To top it all off, there is a ritual that every goddess incarnate must complete once they become of age which is to have sex for the first time. Both participants need to consume a potion so they have to have sex and that is a pleasurable act for both involved. But Rhiannon didn't take the potion and so she ended up getting raped although it wasn't the man's fault since he drank the potion and she didn't. I found this scene to be total garbage. If Rhiannon knew that this ritual would take place then she should have been better prepped by those around her and explained that this should be a beautiful coming of age moment for her and instead Cast gave us a rape scene and that it's Rhiannon's fault since she didn't drink the potion. Being an outsider looking in at this moment we call it rape which it was but with Rhiannon it still doesn't explain why she became the way she was even during her teenage years. Yes, everyone kept placating her but it still doesn't explain how she became such a control freak. I wish Cast would have delved in deeper as to why Rhiannon is the way that she is because the psychology shown from Rhiannon's actions proves that there has to have been something else that caused her to be the way that she is and not just being spoiled and raped once. I feel the ball was greatly dropped when it came to Rhiannon's backstory.

This one event alone was the catalyst for her becoming a sexual sadist. One of the terrible acts that she engages in is cutting a man's penis and then giving him a blowjob which we discover later on in the story that this is one of those perverted Pryderi sexual acts.Not only has Rhiannon gotten her way around old rich men and killed them but she also resurrected Nuada's spirit back to life and brought it into Shannon's world to force him to do her bidding. 

Once Shannon crosses over back to her world, she comes across Clint; ex fighter pilot and the mirror image of ClanFintan. I understand how someone can be mad at Shannon for sleeping with Clint while pregnant with ClanFintan's baby but Epona did say to have sex with him. I don't know about everyone else but if the God I worshiped can clearly communicate to me, telling me to sleep with a certain guy I think I would trust their judgement. Epona is not an evil goddess and Shannon is meant to be a vessel so Epona can bestow her blessings through Shannon. She ended up healing the damage that Rhiannon did to Clint and to his spirit. 

Shannon and Clint working together were able to stop Nuada from utilizing Bres' by first killing Bres' and then the spirits from within the forest were able to destroy Nuada's spirit so he can stop creating havoc and causing more deaths. In bringing Shannon back into her world Rhiannon had to sacrifice a human being. It was confirmed that she used dark magic to be able to switch worlds. So, someone explain to me why Shannon worshiping Epona and not the evil god Pryderi needed a human sacrifice to get home? Why would you need the same 'dark mystical' methods? Did Cast think so little of this because she wanted Clint's death to fit her narrative? Clint sacrificed his life and imprisoned himself and Rhiannon (including their unborn baby) into a tree to transport Shannon back to Partholon. The final few chapters of the book were definitely confusing but I guess Cast thought gods were meant to be mysterious and elusive so it should work? It wasn't clear how and why Clint and Rhiannon merged with the trees in the grove nor why suddenly ClinFantin used the same words of endearment as Clint. "Some things are better not questioned" in other words, I have no explanation why this happened but lets pretend it's a goddess intervention and run with it. Lazy writing if you ask me. 

How come Shannon once back in Partholon never asked ClanFintan why the heck he had sex in his centaur form with Rhiannon? And he impregnated her as well??? How was there no conversation between these two regarding this? Rhiannon literally fucked a horse? Okay, a centaur but still! How did we simply just brush over this? Cast!!! Why??? Am I the only one who freaked out regarding this? And adding salt to injury, Rhiannon got a 80’s abortion, wire hanger and all. This whole part was fucking crazy. 

One thing that bothered me so much was that Cast kept writing booger monster instead of boogey monster. Was this a typo fail? Because booger is not the same thing as a boogey monster. Throughout, the entire book this shit kept coming up and it really irritated the fuck out of me.                                                            

Rating:
I am going to give Divine By Choice 3.5 stars on 5. I did enjoy most of the story but let's be honest here. There was no real plot line. There was Shannon just trying to get back to Partholon, meets Clint and finds out why Rhiannon is a raging bitch. Beyond that? Nothing more was really done. I wanted Cast to bring the thunder and instead she gave us a drought. The first book was good but the sequel bombed. When writing a book you need to have all your bases covered and I don't feel she did. Terrible backstory for Rhiannon, typos and grammatical errors, and there wasn't much logical reasoning going on when it came to Shannon being brought back to Partholon nor ClinFantin getting Clint's mannerisms.